Writing by an Ottawa war chief named Pontiac (1763)

“Before those whom you call your brothers come on your lands, did you not live by bow and arrow? You had no need of gun nor powder, nor the rest of their things, and nevertheless you caught animals to live and clothe yourselves with their skins, but when I saw that you inclined to the evil, I called back the animals into the depths of the woods, so that you had need of your brothers to have your wants supplied and I shall send back to you the animals to live on. I do not forbid you, for all that, to suffer amongst you the children of your father. I love them, they know me and pray to me, and I give them their necessities and all that they bring to you, but as regards those who have come to trouble your country, drive them out, make war on them. I love them not, they know me not, they are my enemies and the enemies of your brothers. Send them back to the country which I made for them. There let them remain.”

Who is the intended audience of this source?

The intended audience of this source is likely the Ottawa people, specifically the members of the tribe who are being addressed by their war chief Pontiac.

The intended audience of this source is the Native American tribes who were being influenced or threatened by European colonizers and their technologies, such as guns and powder.